Knights of the Round Table – Medieval England

In the early Middle Ages, poets and story-tellers were telling a lot of different stories about knights and ladies and their adventures. But how did all these stories fit together? People wanted all of these stories to be tied together somehow. So the poets came up with the idea of the Knights of the Round Table.

It’s a framing story, like the framing story in the earlier Odyssey, the Mahabharata, or the Arabian Nights. A poet named Wace wrote the earliest written description of the Round Table, about 1150 AD.

The table was at the court of King Arthur, and it was round so that all his knights could sit at it without anyone seeming more important than anybody else: they would all be equal to each other (though not to women, or peasants, who couldn’t even sit at the table).

Some of the most famous Knights of the Round Table were Sir Kay, Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, Sir Tristan, and Sir Mordred.

Bibliography and further reading about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table:

Advertisement

Sponsor this article!

More great articles/no distracting ads? Sign me up! Just $1.00, with daily blog posts! So far, 69 articles have found sponsors - 2431 more sponsors needed!
Join our Patreon community
Together we can build a great community and a great website.

Advertisement

Tags

Spam Blocked

About

Since 1994, Quatr.us Study Guides has offered free history and science articles to keep you connected to the latest discoveries in world history. We want you to know why things happened, how that matters today, and what you can do about it. Experts write all our 2500 articles (and counting!), with full bibliography and citation information. Coming soon: free lesson plans and a first-rate resource area.

Why are we called Quatr.us?

Good question! We were thinking of the four corners of the world - four Quarters. We were thinking of Questions, and Quick, and Quality. We wanted a name that would be ours and nobody else's.

Get in touch!

We’d love to talk! Reach out on twitter (@Quatr_us) or Instagram (@quatr.us) or by email (karen @ quatr.us). Open to your sponsorships, link exchanges, or just friendly talk about history. I’d be up for guest posts on your blog, joint Twitter threads, lesson plans, book reviews, or what-have-you. Send all your ideas!